Voyager's grim retailing
by Dontai
Summary: Dark and statistic retailing of voyager and star trek in general. Told in the spirit of warhammer 40k
1. Chapter 1

The sleek intrepid vessel swept past the Akira class to the constant stress of its crew. Janeway look wearily at the massive cube shaped vessel, like some massive angry deity. "Damage report, Trizx," She asks and then braces herself for the answer, glancing over at her Betazoid security and tactical officer. The woman was a few inches smaller than her coming up to her chin, with unusually broad shoulders and small hands, and a head full of curly red hair. Her skin was an almost amber pale color and freckled.

The tactical officer informs her, "Their armor is starting to buckle from micro fissures. Repeated strike could open a whole in the armor."

"Tricobalt torpedoes are design to penetrate armor. What would happen if the round penetrated in unarmored spot?" Janeway rolls her tongue in her mouth as she tries to figure out her next move. Then she looks toward Chaoktai for encouragement. The man offered very little, but managing a weak nod. His normally handsome features appeared sickly in the bright lights of the bridge.

She could sense his fear, his certainty that this was going to be their last fight. With Chaoktai's reluctance to speak, Trizx offers her own assessment of Janeway's plan, "More than likely it would penetrate all the way to the core of the vessel. The inside pressure would increase dramatically from the explosion. It would create multiple ruptures throughout the vessels. The Borg would prevent such a cataclysmic increase in pressure by venting atmosphere. But regardless of what actions they take, it would slow them down considerably." Janeway gave Trizx a stern look, just shut up and do it.

The Betazoids console shows separate holographic displays along with a much older view screen on the console itself, similar to main view screen on the bridge. She studies the constant bombardment from every angle. The Borg was hiding their weak spot from the heaviest of fire. "Tom, get us away from the fire and get behind them." The pilot new better to argue with her and currently was preoccupied by not being friendly fired by a stray shot. On main view screen the Borg ship was becoming more and more distant and then suddenly they swerved around it, ending up behind it. Their ship was facing the Borg's weak spot. Two white streaks launch from the intrepid's undercarriage and crashed into the fissure in the Borg's armor and disappeared inside. The Borg cube came to a complete halt and remained lifeless as a corpse.

Janeway looked down at the floor and sighed to herself, before sitting down. "It's not dead, is it?"

Her tactical officer says wearily with a voice trembling from exhaustion, "No. The fleet is redoubling their efforts, all defensive actions have ceased." There was a massive explosion from the cube's right side. "Quantum torpedo have penetrated their armor. I'm reading a massive power-loss throughout the super structure. The vessel is intact but non-operable. I think the damage is beyond even the Borg's ability to repair."

Janeway shot up from her seat, quite suddenly, full of purpose. "It means they probably lost power to the emergency bulkhead doors as well. Fire Tricobalt torpedoes into several of their weak spots, maximize damage."

The viewscreen showed no change in the cube, the damage inside went unseen by eyes, but the sensors showed something different. The entire inside was destroyed leaving a husk.

Kesthryn Zelnaga was their Ba'ku communication offer, a thin blond hair woman with a round face, small round nose, thick bridge, and forward facing nostrils, strong cheekbones that were lightly flushed. The Ba'ku most notable feature was the complete lack of ears, instead having a boney crest surrounding the auricular opening. "Federation had issued a stand down order." Janeway nodded towards Trizx who brought the weapons offline. Then she looked at Chaoktai who seems to be praying, he said nothing during the last final moments of the battle.

(-)

"You remember when the federation didn't have so many enemies." Chaoktai says turning to look at her, with a glass of whiskey in his hand. His face had become emaciated, seen most prominently around his cheekbones. "Thirty years ago I think everything was good. Then twenty years ago, the Shizin Romulan dynasty rose to power and it's has been downhill ever since."

"We use to be explorers, have a purpose." Janeway's voice was strained from exhaustion. "Now we spend our days fighting for survival."

He hands over his drink, "Now we drink to get out of bed in the morning." She swigs the entire thing in one gulp and continues speaking.

"Look how far we have fallen. In ten short years currency has been reinstated, poverty and crime are now prevalent in our society. We've been force to subjugate societies becoming nothing more than another Cardassian union. Ten years ago these tales of dangers of repeating the past were used to frighten children. Now it's the new norm."

"The days of rainbows and ice cream are over. Now it's an age of total war." Chaoktai says in a dead pan tone completely dry of humor. She sighs to herself. She wishes the conversation could take a turn for the cheerful, but it was impossible.

(-)

Janeway finally caught up with Kesthrynin in the hall. She had been unusually quiet about their next mission. "I know you have problem with our mission, but you still have to follow orders."

"You call these orders? I should blindly help you annex another world, just like mine?" Janeway backhands her across the face.

"The Andorians may have been one of our loyal supporters since the federation was first founded, but there can be no excuse and no leniency for traitors. The Andorians provide vast amount of both manpower and weapon manufacturing. If they leave, they doom not only themselves but us as well. If the Klingon remnant doesn't swallow their pathetic planet whole, the Borg or Gorn will. What we need is yet another selfish planet assimilated by the Borg. You were given leniency because you swore fidelity to the federation, but at the end of the day, you're a slave. You will serve us or you will serve the Borg, least with us there is a choice. You're all so weak, to not make a choice to benefit us all."

She knew how the federation usually treated its traitors and prisoners in general, was enough to subdue dissidence. She tapped on her com badge, "Bridge, redirect signal to Trizx." It was already working, the Ba'ku defiant face turned weak. There was a quick motion, too fast and unexpected for her to react, the woman lunges for the phaser on her hip and nearly misses it. The woman now had a phaser drawn on her, but she doesn't even flinch. She didn't care if the young Ba'ku fires, she wasn't going to waste an opportunity to mock her attempt to escape. "Surrounded on all sides and trapped, you were born a slave and you'll die a slave."

"I will not die as a slave."

They both heard the turbolift down the hall open and turn to look at it. Kesthrynin fired in that direction before running off. Ten minutes later Janeway was informed that Kesthrynin gallant last stand ended with a phaser blast to the chest.

(-)


	2. Chapter 2

2.1 **Infection**

Chakotay head is groggy. His first thoughts were to shake himself free of his confusion. Then he notice how stale the air is. It smells of smoke and decay, somethings nearby had been dead for a while. He notice he wasn't alone and that several members of his crew were here. Janeway, Trizx, Kes, and Harry. When he saw Kes he was sure there will be trouble. He had his doubts as to Kes' guilt. The trial proved nothing. Regardless of his own internal dilemma, they had a criminal in there midst. The person he would have suspected took offense with her presence being here didn't seem to acknowledge.

He sits up and Harry, who is scanning the area with a triccorder, looks over at him. "This isn't voyager," Harry says.

"I know," Chakotay say letting his voice trail off. He didn't need a tricorder to tell him that. "This seems to real to be hullicination or holodeck. But it's to hard to tell.

He saw Harry mess with the tricorder, "I'm not detecting the unstable matter associated with the holodeck." Then he half mumbles to himself, "We made it back to earth." Janeway chimes in, "unlikely. Where is voyager. How did we end up on this planet?"

"This looks like earth architecture," Chakotay says looking around. Besides the dingy dirt covered walls, it looks like the earth he remembered. He takes another look around the alley way with the collapsed abandoned buildings on either side. It was an old fashioned not prefabricated, massonary structure. You could see the rebar protruding from the wall.

When chakotay emerged from the alleyway into the main street, he could clearly see the architecture was human. He even saw a touchscreen data terminal. He tapped a key calling for the latest headlines. Millions dead, millions unaccounted for. He scrolls down, vulcans quartine earth.

"Why would the vulcans quarantine earth," janeway asked him? He gave a shrugged. The vulcans were earth's oldest allies but the human race had been annexing worlds in desperation. For all he knew it was payback. She then suggested, "An insurrection? Why use the word quarantine instead of blockade?"

Chakotay notice the smell was stronger out here. He looked up and down the street. There were bodies wearing civilian clothing in different states of decay lining the streets. He said to the group, "We don't have a doctor with us and I only have basic medical knowledge." He walks over to the freshest body. "Decay rate is all wrong. He died months after the rest. My best guess is blunt force trauma. There blood pooling in his brain."

"This doesn't seem like an insurrection," Janeway says with fear creeping into her voice and sounding genuine afraid.

Up ahead were more bodies. "This is clear," he says not needing to examine them to know what had killed them. Phaser fire. We shot our own people.

It was the final straw for Janeway. "We wouldn't kill our own. It's a trick or a holodeck." The quivering in her voice forces him to look at her with concern. Her emotion were coming back. The captain furiously starts tearing at the walls looking for the hidden holodeck. She didn't find one.

"Captain," he says startling her. She looks over in his direction. There was a vulcan ship crashed in the middle of the city. "The hell," the group says all at once.

Chakotay didn't mean to walk towards the derlic. Rational thought had slipped from his mind and he absentmindedly walks towards it. Within a couple of steps he becomes aware of walking towards it. "Guy," he says with a slack jaw "should we investigate?" No response. He starts walking towards it.

After dragging the shocked crew along for a couple of miles, they reach the outskirts of the impact crater. The heart of san francisco was completely leveled. The center of the city is a crater stretching for twenty miles. Surrounding it like a wall is a debris field from the surrounding structures. This wall was starting to falling into the crater showing it's continue growth. The city must have been ablaze at one point. He stops.

Vulcans were staggering around it as if injured and in a heighten state of agitation. He singles out a lone vulcans.

"Greetings," he says waving his hand calmly at him. "Can you tell me what has happened here?" No response. The vulcan doesn't even notice he is there. But he notices the pointy eared alien is foaming of the mouth, white bubbles gurgling up from black ooze. He had growth all over him, like some horrfic fungus growing out of gangrenous sores. "The hell is wrong with him." He backed away quickly. All of the vulcans and quite a few humans were in the exact same state.

Harry whispers, "We got to find a hospital or some places to figure this out."

Janeway preposes finding, "Let's try starfleet head quarters." Chakotay gave a affirming nod.

The headquarters of the largest organization in history was a warzone. Massive barricades both conventional and forcefeilds held back what was conceivably hundreds of races in the same condition. There were other bodies torn apart or partially eaten. Janeway knew a final stand when she saw it. Whatever happened, it happened a long time ago.

"Why did we come here," Chakotay asked? Followed by trzix adding, "This is tactically unsound plan. We're exposed and out in the open."

Janeway could understand why they weren't interested in what had happened. These were more than her people, these were her friends. They represented her ideology. She hadn't always agreed with it. It took a long time to reach a point where she could agree with it. But once you reach a certain point that you make a life changing decision, you normally don't want to go back. Having that way of life ript away was devastating. "Have you ever felt your entire life, your direction, your cause so to speak, be ript away? I dedicated my life to this organization."

"For once there is peace," Chakotay says in a hush somber tone that hurt more than any wound. The words were quiet and she felt his tone was unnecessarily grim.

"We don't need your morbid attitude." She didn't mean to be so harsh, but this really wasn't the place.

"It doesn't matter how it happened or how we got here. It's about survival." She gave a sigh, he was right. Even with her first officer being correct, she had to explore this place to put the past to rest.

"Guys find shelter and then contacted me afterwards. I'm going to explore this place." She raised her hand to silence the protest that followed.

The inside was incredibly dark, the paint on the walls had dulled and was peeling from rot. There was a vast amount of dust in the air. The place had a fetid smell of rotting bodies. She found out why. Around the first corner from admin access across from the public entrance is a large pile of bodies. Most were too decayed to recognize their faces. The only feature that is recognizable was the charred remains from concentrated phaser fire. She steps pass them and enters the admiral intelligent agency. The room had several scattered data-pads. There were mision reports and after skimming over a few of them, she had piece together a vague understanding of what had happen.

There were some interesting points.

The war against the Borg lasted one-hundred years and was now over, but at the cost of technological progression and billions of lives. The reports show slow rebuilding from the war. But also anomalous readings from the edge of federation space.

Tens years after the hundred year Borg-war ended, a plague of some kind had broken out. The intial reports must have been lost because it's briefly mentioned. It picks up right after the infection was beyond control. Millions were fleeing from the planet. These report were in the final days. Most of them were reports on trying to contain the citizen and effectively signing there death sentence. The last dated report showed the vulcans quarantining the planet. She threw down the last data-pad with extremely loud audible thud stirring the dust. She found what she wanted and knew what had happened. Now she had to survive in this world of the dead.

( )

"I can't make sense of these reports," Harry says frustrated "I'm not a doctor. I'm a scientist. I know the basics about biology."

"From what I can see," he says "It's some kind of neural parasite that overrides the host organism's nervous system."

"That's what those things are," Chakotay asks?

"Yes, Harry says "Carriers. Hundreds of them. The parasites are too primitive to use weapons, tools, or any form of tactics. Their essentially meat-puppets."

"Aggressive?"

The intermittent spikes in dopamine and adrenaline were cataloged in the charts. Harry nodded glumly.

"When do you think Janeway will be back," Trizx asked? He knew the captain for a long time, during the long early wars.

"No telling," Chakotay tells her not truly knowing the answer.

Despite Chakotay's constant assurance that the hospital was mostly secured, he wasn't sure. He wasn't any form of tactical officers and wasn't trained for combat. They hadn't seen any sign that the surviver were hostile. But that didn't change anything. The preliminary results weren't even promising. He much rather figure out how he got here, they got here.

Instead he could clearly see chakotay was disinterested. The man is focused on survival. The explorer in him was replaced by the caveman. The group was directed by Chakotay to the cafeteria where he went into the back. Trizx stayed in the seating area going over the rows of metal tables. Kes hanged back besides Harry. Neither one of them spoke a word and he preferred it that way. Several hours went by, how many he didn't know. He could have check his PDA or tricorder but what was the point.

The group had found rice packets, canned goods, and several jars. Everyone else gladly partook of the food. Harry did not. He wished he had a light and for the uneasy feelings to go away. Something, somewhere out there, was watching him. The hours blended together in a horribly bland stew of uneasy feelings causing him to laps into unconscious.

He woke in a dark room and for a second, brief unbelievably amazing second, he thought he was on voyager. Than he felt the dampness of floor, the fetid smell stung his nose. The worse part were the dark oval eyes staring at him. He swore he must be dreaming. Then the eyes came rushing at him. He didn't scream, not a sound. Instead he kicked out and felt his boot collide with something very real and not a nightmare. The thing screams out in pain. He realized it wasn't pain, but surprise. He saw movement, Chakotay probably, swinging something at it. More screaming. He didn't waste his chance, he got to his feet and ran.

Trizx curses to herself. What was Harry doing? Running through the dark corridors is suicide. She can still see Chakotay struggling with the thing. There is too high of a risk of hitting the wrong person. She set the phasor to stun. She fires into the dark and hears Chakotay cry out. Wrong target. She fires again and hears a woman cry out.

She fumbles for her bag and pulls out a glow stick. Waving the stick over the intruder reveals a sight that turns her blood to ice water. The woman's molted grey skin was covered in lesions and peeling resulting in bloody puss pockets. Parts of her skin were bulging with fungal like growth connected by rust colored tendrils snaking out from the wounds. Her eyes were nearly covered up by growths, jagged teeth rotting from cracks in them. The woman's breath is haggard wheezing gasps for hair. The suffering is so overwhelming that she set her phaser to kill and fired. The woman laid still.

She notice Kes is staring at her horrified. That woman's eyes demanding an explanation. "Just look at her," she screamed! Kes backs away slowly. Silence consumes the room. The minutes tick away and the silence doesn't pass. The sight of the bloated deformed corpses is too much to bare, Trizx leaves immediately. More silence.

Outside of the room in the hallway, a hand rest on her shoulder causing her spin around phaser at the ready. She sees Kes looking sympathetic. The woman's eyes were saying don't worry, it wasn't your fault. It wasn't her fault. But she would be lying if she thought she did it out of mercy. Deep down inside she knew the real reason. She would become like them. Seeing the infected woman was like looking into her future. She wanted to cry, to scream out all of her frustrations. But she couldn't scream. At least not out loud, she is screaming in her head, the sound is deafening in her head. She stumbles back over a metal chair and screams as the floor rushes up to greet her.

()

Janeway smells them before she saw them. There footsteps were deafening in the absolute silence. They're movement is twitchy like a kid controling a toy for the first time. They would start walking before stumbling straight into the wall and breaking off teeth and plant growth from their face. Then they would stand up and continue walking.

The fate of the citizens earth was a cruel one indeed. She so desperately wished to free them from there fate. She was so entranced by them that she didn't notice the person behind her. Hearing a familiar shriek from behind snaps her out of it. She knew the voice. She heard it before from Tom's father admiral Paris. She vaguely recognized his wide face and strong jaw, but the face was so tortured that barely anything remained. The once proud eyes of the distinguished admiral were lifeless.

It lunged kicking on her instincts and she dived out of the way. The creature is surprisingly quick. It let out a desperately hungry growl. He again lashes out with boney gnarly fingers and misses. His next move was a strike with a clenched fist. His movement came to sudden halt as a phaser blast strikes his torso and he crumples to ground. The rest of the creatures, vague faces once called superiors and friends, gave a low agressive howl and blindly charge forward. From all around her were answering cries, shadows were coming to life. She turns to run further in while being pursued by countless number enemies.

Separating the public and private sections of starfleet command was a massive barricade partially torn down, a crack in between the two segment barely big enough to fit through. The creatures were too stupid and there senses too poor to find the opening. They hopelessly scratch at the barricade. Behind Janeway she hears staggering foot steps. In an instinctive reaction she turns and fires. The creature is hit just above its heart and dies in painful agony. Janeway was safe for the moment.

She was wrong. The number of creatures behind the weakened barricades had swelled. At first it was only the sound of the barricades creaking but now she heard the bodies of the creatures tearing and bones cracking. It is a wet sickening sounds like nothing she could describe. The barricade came crashing down revealing broken bones protruding from compound fractures and exposed torn muscles. The obviously fatal and extremely painful injuries barely seem to have an affect on them.


End file.
